The dictatorship in Korea has never been sane. But now they are taking it to new lengths.
And North Korea unleashed a new missile that threatens US territory.
While President Trump continues touting his personal rapport with Kim Jong Un on the campaign trail, North Korea just launched a missile test with a sobering message of its own: Pyongyang is building weapons capable of striking American territory, diplomacy or no diplomacy. The regime fired what it described as an intermediate-range strategic missile on October 3, and according to a leading North Korea analyst, the test puts Guam and parts of Alaska squarely within range.
Kim personally oversaw the drill, according to North Korean state media, and the significance extends well beyond another routine show of force. Sydney Seiler, a former U.S. Forces Korea analyst and National Intelligence Council officer now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Fox News Digital that the missile’s reach carries implications stretching far beyond the Korean Peninsula.
According to Reuters, citing North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency, the missile was described as part of a “hypersonic strategic weapon system” and traveled roughly 621 miles off the country’s east coast. Seiler explained exactly why an intermediate-range ballistic missile like this one matters so much more than North Korea’s shorter-range tests. “What is interesting about an IRBM launch — an intermediate-range ballistic missile that flies around 3,000 to 5,000 kilometers — is that it brings Guam, parts of Alaska, and Japan into range of North Korea,” Seiler said.
Guam isn’t just another dot on the map. The U.S. territory in the western Pacific hosts major American military installations, including Andersen Air Force Base and Naval Base Guam — strategic assets that have become increasingly central to American military posture in the Indo-Pacific as tensions with both North Korea and China continue to simmer.
The timing of all this couldn’t be more pointed. Hours after the missile launch, Trump was touting his relationship with Kim during a rally in Vandalia, Ohio. “I get along great with Kim Jong Un. Isn’t it nice to get along with the leaders of massive nuclear nations?” Trump told the crowd, adding, “When someone has 112 nuclear missiles, it is better to get along with them.” Kim’s response to that outreach, in effect, was a missile test capable of reaching American territory.
Seiler was careful to note that the launch likely wasn’t a direct, spur-of-the-moment response to Trump’s comments, given how much advance preparation an intermediate-range system requires. But he didn’t mince words about what North Korea’s broader posture signals. “North Korea simply isn’t interested in talking right now, so they have no incentive not to launch,” Seiler said. “The fact that they’re doing these missile launches amid a diplomatic effort by President Trump to try to re-engage the North, you have to see them only as somewhat related.”
This test followed North Korea’s launch of two short-range ballistic missiles from the Wonsan area on September 20, and officials from the United States, South Korea, and Japan have all stated that North Korea’s ballistic missile tests violate United Nations Security Council resolutions and threaten regional and international security. That’s not a controversial or partisan assessment — it’s the settled position of every major democratic ally in the region watching Pyongyang’s behavior closely.
Seiler situated the latest launch within an even bleaker diplomatic picture. “North Korea has refrained from some more aggressive actions during the president’s term of office; we haven’t seen an ICBM launch for almost two years now,” he noted — a modest silver lining. But he also pointed to what he called “the larger context of a current absolute stand down on dialogue with South Korea and repeated rejections of overtures from the United States for dialogue.” In other words, whatever restraint North Korea has shown on its most provocative weapons systems hasn’t translated into any genuine willingness to actually talk.
Seiler offered a chilling long-term read on North Korea’s actual strategic objective, one that should give pause to anyone hoping continued diplomacy might eventually produce denuclearization. “For North Korea, their overall diplomatic strategy is to condition the world to accept them for who they are: a non-denuclearizing, missile-launching, occasionally provoking, and rhetorically coercive state,” he said. “As time goes on, their goal is for us to give up any hope of denuclearization or structural change, which is consistent with them establishing a baseline: whether diplomacy unfolds or not, they will continue to develop and demonstrate missile technology.”
That’s about as clear a statement as you’ll get of what North Korea’s actual long-term game plan looks like, and it should temper expectations for what continued presidential outreach can realistically achieve. Trump has continued to signal interest in reviving the kind of personal diplomacy that defined his first term, including his 2018 and 2019 summits with Kim in Singapore and Hanoi and his historic walk across the DMZ into North Korean territory. Seiler confirmed Trump remains “open to a phone call” with Kim, noting that even without immediate progress on denuclearization, direct dialogue “contributes to tension reduction and helps establish a direct relationship necessary for future crisis management on the peninsula.”
Complicating matters further is Kim’s deepening alignment with Russian President Vladimir Putin. North Korea has supplied troops and military equipment to support Russia’s war in Ukraine, and according to Seiler, that relationship has fundamentally reduced Kim’s incentive to engage with Washington at all. “Right now, Kim Jong Un, particularly given his emerging relationship with Vladimir Putin and everything he’s getting out of the relationship with Russia right now, simply doesn’t need to talk to the United States,” Seiler said.
There’s even an unusual wrinkle in the Trump-Kim relationship story worth noting: former NBA star Dennis Rodman, who has made multiple personal trips to North Korea and developed a rapport with Kim over the years, joined Trump at a Peterbilt plant in Texas before traveling with the president to a rally in Oklahoma. When reporters asked whether Trump was using Rodman to help broker renewed contact with Pyongyang, the president leaned into his own relationship instead, declaring, “As long as I’m here, you’re not gonna have any problems. Somebody else comes, you’re gonna have some big problems.” Seiler acknowledged that Rodman’s unique personal access to Kim could offer the administration genuine insight, but cautioned that “he is still a long way off from getting airplane tickets” toward any formal diplomatic breakthrough.
For now, the bottom line is sobering: North Korea just tested a missile system capable of reaching American territory in the Pacific, while simultaneously refusing all meaningful dialogue with Washington and Seoul, all while deepening its military partnership with Russia. President Trump’s continued optimism about his personal relationship with Kim may reflect genuine diplomatic instinct, but Pyongyang’s actions tell a very different story — one of a regime steadily expanding its strike capability against American interests while calculating that time, not talks, is on its side.
